So, you’ve made it. You’ve passed your really really easy A-Levels (didn’t you read the papers on results’ day?), and are now in Cardiff. Even though in my day your three Bs would only have been worth a B, two Cs and a D in General Studies, you’re at officially the best university in Wales. No pressure.
Okay, okay. I’m being a bit harsh. Maybe you just worked very hard and had excellent teaching and exam guidance. It’s just that that just doesn’t fit the ‘exams are getting easier’ ideology which, as a journalist, I am required to follow. So shush. Dissenting opinions will be silenced, or at least relegated to the letters page of The Guardian.
Whether you got here through diligence or dumbing-down (and secretly I believe the former, but don’t tell anyone), it’s probably at least a bit scary. It’s alright; you can tell me. I know you don’t want to admit it, but everyone’s a bit scared. Even that guy wandering around your flat topless, loudly proclaiming last night’s conquest like a priapic foghorn.
Talking of the priapic foghorn, first impressions are important, but not necessarily indicators of anything. Try to give a good one yourself, but don’t pay too much attention to other people’s. On the first night that I went to the Taf with my flatmates I drank far too much, and had to be escorted home before everyone else continued their night. Thankfully they were a forgiving bunch and realised that I was very embarrassed and not the complete waster I’d probably seemed. Don’t let flatmates’ Facebook profiles put you off too much, either; I thought one of mine would be a complete idiot based on his profile picture, and I was almost entirely wrong.
Oh yeah, try to actually get on with your flatmates. You’ll be living with them for at least the first year. It may be that you have a weird flatmate who just stares at you, or you may have amazing flatmates with whom you can make dens, but either way it’s useful to be able to be civil with them. Then, once you’ve discovered their ulterior motives, you can work out who you can reasonably attack with duvets (it happens) without fear of disproportionate retaliation.
But even if your flatmates are all generic, worthless student voids who love great nights out and drinkiiiiiing, don’t despair. Last year we effectively adopted someone from the flat opposite because he didn’t get on with his flatmates, and even if the people you live with are Daily Mail-wielding, Clarkson-adoring Young Conservatives, you’ve always got your coursemates (who handily are likely to have at least some common ground with you by virtue of being on the same course).
If you’re a hopeless romantic and have sworn yourself to someone many miles away, then try not to sleep with anyone immediately. Or at least don’t try to. And don’t go to any Traffic Light parties wearing orange (translation: in a long-distance relationship but looking), you callous, cold-hearted git. Besides, it’s supposed to be amber, so it’s wrong on multiple levels.
Soon you’ll have navigated the seemingly perilous (but actually okay) meeting people stage. Then come the advertisements and the lectures. I’ll focus on the advertisements here because, especially if you’re taking a Humanities course, you’ll actually have more contact time with the leafleters than with your lecturers.
Basically, advertisers want your student loan. They don’t think you can be trusted with it and would rather look after it themselves, and they’ll use two main tactics to convince you to hand it over. The first is the ‘hateful student stereotype’ tactic, based on the theory that all students mystifyingly identify with a leftovers-eating, hungover student caricature who loves alcohol and can’t get out of bed in the morning. Quite why anyone would see this image and think ‘Yes! That’s me and who I want to be seen as, and I accept this generalisation!’ is beyond my comprehension, but it seems to work or else they wouldn’t keep using it. It needs to stop.
The second tactic is more insiduous. They’ll play on your insecurities, putting a few possibilities out there in the hope that one’ll stick. Maybe you don’t like your teeth, or maybe in Year 9 Sally Bishop said your hair was yucky. But just remember that you are not defined by your shampoo, or your handbag, or the Che Guevara t-shirt you’re so proudly weari- oh wait, that one does define you. But you know what I mean. And don’t sign up for anything on the spot, especially not charity standing orders – you are not a bad person if you don’t because you can’t afford it.
I’ll stop now; I’m getting all misty-eyed. It’s not very me. I’ll finish by saying that it’s okay to be a bit overdrawn and it’s okay to not be posting results of 80+ in your modules. Just enjoy it, and don’t forget to read and even write for gair rhydd. I hope that’s okay, anyway, because that’s what happened to me. I’ll let you know for sure in two years…
1. Mark
Big school? Sorry kiddies but this is nursery. A nursery where you’ll drink far to much alcohol and sleep with far too many people but a nursery nonetheless. ‘Big school’ starts when you either become a Postgrad student or join the rather scary concept of the ‘real world’ where one just doesn’t have a job one has a ‘career’. I’d urge all you newbies to put this frightening prospect off for as long as possible, for most of you that will just be three or four years, for some it will be a bit longer, for others you’ll just go back to working in Tesco (no offence to Media Studies types) and finally a few of you with end up doing a PhD and face the prospect of never leaving university life which is a somewhat daunting prospect but it still bets the real world. So whoever you are, wherever you came from, whatever your reasons for being here and whatever you end up doing (by chance or design) then I tell you this, enjoy the next few years as they will, in all likelihood, be amongst the most memorable and enjoyable of your life. Be sure to use this opportunity to drink excessively and act irresponsibly, the world seems to accept student drink induced stupidity as a fate accompli but, apparently, frowns on businessmen urinating in the street and running down the road screaming to your friends that you acquired a traffic cone. Three years goes far to quickly I’m afraid so make the most of it. Don’t worry about the ‘work’ side of uni, as long as you’ve got a reasonable intellect then leaving things to the last minute won’t cause you too much trouble. Though by far the most important advice I can give any new arrival into our glorious institution is this, for fuck’s sake do not, under any circumstances, buy a pint from the students union. This is the start of my seventh year at Cardiff and I have never, not once, had even a remotely nice one.
Mark, 7th Year PhD Political History